BVA president-elect John Blackwell has found himself on the front page of The Times today, and interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme, with a call to end the practice of slitting animal's throats and allowing them to bleed to death in order to produce kosher and halal meat.
According to the newspaper, 600,000 animals are killed this way every week in the UK.
Mr Blackwell is urging Jews and Muslims to allow meat-producing animals to be stunned before they are killed.
Speaking to The Times, Mr Blackwell said: "As veterinary surgeons, it is one of the most important issues on our radar. This is something that can be changed in an instant."
See other media reports here.
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Here we go again! The arguments are well rehearsed and the science is well established. There is no justification to allow this inhumane practice to continue save on so called religious grounds. It is a pity the focus is not placed more on the middlemen in the meat industry that make fat profits on those "unusable" parts of the Schechita carcase that are released unlabelled to the unsuspecting public at full humanely slaughtered animal carcase prices.
I write as one that has experienced both sides of the fence both scientifically and " professionally" - Tim Miles MRCVS
Ex MLC, RSPCA, MAFF and Smithfield.
Update. The BVA has issued a statement you can read here: www.bva.co.uk/.../3736.aspx
Well done BVA
Wynne
I always knew they would come down on the right side in the end.
The sooner this is banned the better
Good news - we were forced to watched Kosher killing at an abattoir as a student. Horrendous ! Time these outdated & inhumane practices were banned altogether on animal cruelty grounds. It's time these people professing so-called "religious" reasons for such slaughter entered the 21st century way of life rather than wallowing in concepts dreamed up 2 millenia ago ! Animal cruelty is abhorrent, and as veterinarians, it is encumbent upon us to stamp it out, regardless of the uproar from vested interests.
In Australia, many of us vets have joined groups to ban live animal exports completely to countries that slaughter animals in unacceptable fashion. The loss of lives on the long trip over to middle eastern countries,
+ the common occurrence of fires on these ships with horrible suffering and deaths, is also completely unacceptable.